Celtic are currently baking in the warm glow of Brendan Rodgers brand of optimism, and after the early embarrassment of Champions League defeat to Gibraltar's Lincoln Red Imps, Celtic have romped to the group stages of the Champions League and have now given their great rivals an almighty shellacking.
Rodgers now has Celtic on a roll, and a 5-1 hammering of Rangers is a fairly spectacular way of boosting the mood ahead of Tuesday's game against Barcelona. Granted, Celtic were helped by some pathetic defending by Phillip Senderos in particular, but Rodgers was in ebullient mood after the game, saying that the occasion was "everything I expected and more".
Rodgers also paid tribute to his late father and Jock Stein in his pre-match pep talk:
My father is dead five years today so it is ironic that we scored five goals and obviously Jock Stein was 31 years today.
This is a guy who created a template of playing football here that to this day hopefully he looks down proud and sees a team with that mentality.
Front foot, aggressive, no fear and when things go against you have that mentality to bounce back.
Irish and West Brom winger James McClean took great delight in Celtic's landslide victory, using a famed Irish administrative phrase to communicate his glee:
Elsewhere, Joey Barton, who spent much of the game chasing shadows in midfield, waited until this morning to tweet his reaction:
No excuses. Nowhere near good enough for our football club yesterday.
— Joey Barton (@Joey7Barton) September 11, 2016
While Barton waited a day to react, in the heat of the aftermath, Scott Brown took no prisoners, saying that it was men against boys.
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